2016 Republican Floor Fight? Be there!

The Republican State Committee recently voted to choose 2016 Republican Convention delegates through the caucus system. So anyone who’s registered to vote as a Republican by February 10, 2016 can run in a caucus to be delegate to the 2016 Republican Convention! But why run?

First, look at the field of candidates? There’s likely never been as much energy and as many full platform conservative candidates as there are this year. There’s considerable talk that there may even be a “floor fight” for the nomination similar to those featuring Dwight Eisenhower and Robert Taft in 1952 or even Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford in 1976. (Imagine: Reagan only needed 59 votes to win the 1976 nomination!)

But there’s more than that!

Townhall.com recently published a piece by Katie Kieffer titled, GOP Elites Secret Plan to Expel Donald Trump and Ben Carson. The piece describes how the Republican establishment, RNC leadership and staff, will alter the Rules of the Republican Party to block not only Trump or Carson, but any candidate they don’t like.

Ms. Kieffer unwittingly highlights a key role that convention delegates can and should play: guardians of the Platform and the Rules Committees (and of who gets into the Convention, but the Credentials Committee is another post!). Most see political party conventions for their entertainment value and for unifying and giving the winning nominee a jump-start for the final months of their campaign. But the Republican Convention also establishes the Platform for the Republican Party and the Rules for the Republican Party for the following four years.

Phyllis Schlafly and Eagle Forum know full well the games the GOP establishment elders attempt to play on the Platform Committee. She has fought for over 40 years to keep the pro-life plank in the Republican Party Platform. How? By getting pro-life delegates elected and placed on the Platform Committee. She’s a grassroots guardian!

As an aside, the 2016 Platform Committee will not only see a fight for the pro-life plank but with the SCOTUS decision in Obergefell (pronounce oh berg a fell) v. Hodges there’ll also be a fight for the traditional marriage plank of the platform.

Grassroots guardians also have to guard the Rules as the same principle stands when it comes to the Rules of the Republican Party. The only difference between the Rules Committee and the Platform Committee is the high-profile nature of the issues (it’s sexier!) associated with the Platform Committee. I mean, really, who cares about the Rules when you can fight about life and marriage!

I do, because the rules establish, among a great many things, the balance of power within the Republican Party between the staff and leadership of the Republican National Committee and the members of the Republican Party—the grassroots, that is.

Because few people pay attention to the rules, power-seeking, and to some nefarious, elements have had a field day with the Rules over the past 20 or 30 years. That’s how Rule 40(b), the Rule that Kieffer writes about, was changed. There continues to be a slow but sure inertia to the concentration of power in the Republican Party.

But just as the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives ousted John Boehner from the Speakership, so to must regular members rise up, run for delegates, and be active in all aspects of the 2016 Republican Convention. It all comes down to the votes. With enough full-platform conservatives on the Convention floor, we can wage a floor fight over not only the Platform and the Rules, but for a truly, full-platform conservative Republican Presidential candidate! This is not a Convention to miss!